Dying of the Light
by George R.R. Martin
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Book Summary Information
Author: George R.R. MartinEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-28
ISBN: 0553383086
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Bantam
Book Reviews of Dying of the Light
Book Review: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light; Do not go gently into that good night"
Summary: 5 Stars
For a first book, "Dying of the Light" deserves high praise. The storyline is complex and the quality and depth of imagination that Martin displays is tremendous. The title is clearly drawn from Dylan Thomas' great poem with the well known lines :
"Rage, rage against the dying of the light;
Do not go gently into that good night".
Dylan Thomas wrote the poem for his father (who was then blind and close to death), urging him to battle, rather than surrender. So it is but natural to find that "Dying of the Light" is a story of death. Death on many levels, and how death is faced by the dying.
To start with, the plant of Worlorn, the locale for the book, is itself dying; a rogue planet whose erratic course is taking it irreversibly far from its neighboring stars, into a region of cold and dark where no life will survive. Worlorn's 15 cities, built during the brief festival when it passed close enough to a red giant star to permit a brief window for life to thrive, are dying too. Built to celebrate the diverse cultures of 15 planetary systems, they have been largely abandoned, their systems and maintenance are failing and soon they will be cold dead shells. And of course the cast of characters is also flirting with death. Dirk t'Larien, the protagonist, finds life empty and of little attraction after his girlfriend Gwen Delvano drops him. Most poignant of all, the Kavalar race, into which she has married (the relationship is too complex to describe in a review so I use the word married) is itself dying in a cultural manner of speaking. Their home plant has survived a numerous attacks in a planetary war and in response they have evolved social institutions and human relationship patterns to cope with the depredation of the war. Yet now that the war is long past, they find themselves trapped between those who would recognise that the old ways need to be reviewed for the current day, and those who believe that any dilution of the old ways spells the end of Kavalar culture.
The battles then, of all these varying actors are played out beneath the dying light falling on Worlorn. At the end, many of the characters have indeed died (Martin leaves some endings deliberately ambiguous) but it is the manner in which they have faced their fears (of death and of life) that make the story great. This is not simplistic, easy reading science fiction, with lasers and spaceships and other bells and whistles, but rather mature science fiction, looking at human relationships in a context that is difficult to comprehend.
As with all Martin's work, the characters are humanly grey rather than stark black and white. The "good guys" are tainted by weaknesses, while the "bad guys" often have some redeeming features. "Dying of the Light" also foreshadows the breadth of imagination and the depth of focus that characterize Martin's subsequent works, most of all the Song of Ice and Fire series. Martin's descriptions of the various cultures (as embodied in the festival cities) is matchless. An excellent example is his description of the city of Kryne Lamiya, designed by its planetary culture in such a way that the winds which blow through its streets and bounce off its towers, play an actual symphony of music. This book is puny when viewed against the Ice and Fire series, but well worth a read all the same. I highly recommend it to Martin's fans and to all readers of quality science fiction.
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